Seared on my Heart
by Protect-My-Purple-Unicorn
Summary: Takes place the day after Will and Jem first meet (Clockwork Princess, Prologue). Will Herondale is at war with himself. At only twelve, he has forced himself to push away everyone, scared of what others love for him will do to them. Will is prepared to try and push the newest Institute's newest ward, but what happens when Jem refuses to go along with it. Friendly fluff. One-Shot.


William Herondale had no clue what he was doing as he stared at the wall of weapons in the training room, waiting for the newest of the London Institute to join him. He could not honestly say that he had been thinking when he accepted to train with the strange, sickly Carstairs boy. He realized this directly after agreeing to it, as he had watched Charlotte, who looked as though she had just witnessed some magical change, had hurried off with James Carstairs, mumbling about some medicine the boy had to take.

If Will was being truly honest with himself, he knew that he heart, which had been aching in a horribly painful way ever since- he winced physically, as he often did when he thought about his family- his sister- when he was alone. He quickly edited that thought. His heart had been aching for six months, desperately wanting some companionship, wanting someone to share his thoughts, his words, with, and being denied that for six months. But here was the answer! His heart pounded furiously. A boy who was dying, another soul he could care for, without fear of the curse.

Will's heart had brought this up again and again, and Will, so desperate for someone to confide in, was ready to accept this. After all, nobody could have _no one_ to care for, and to care for them. But as quickly as his heart had persuaded him, his mind retaliated with the horribly image of his Ella, his big sister, dead, malformed, in her bed. If he truly wanted to take care of this Carstairs boy, wouldn't the best thing be to push him away, just as harshly as he did Charlotte and Henry, who he already held close to his heart. Did he want that boys two years to be shortened to one year, or a few months. It had been an almost constant battle raging through his mind, and he had hardly slept.

If he had slept, he never would have jumped as he did when the door to the training room opened and James Carstairs hurried in.

Carstairs looked just as thin and sickly as he had the day before, maybe a little more so. his black-silver hair was messy, and he was pale in his black gear. "Hello," his voice was breathless. "I apologize if I kept you waiting. This institute is different than the one in Shanghai."

Will gave a non-committal grunt as he continued to study the wall of weapons. He couldn't bring himself to say anything awful to this boy, whose eyes, despite knowing his condition, where soft, innocent, and calm. Will wished he would give him a reason not to feel bad for being cruel, as the Lightwood boys had (the youngest had immediately started insulting Will's father for leaving the Shadowhunters, claiming a renegade Shadowhunter worse than a "mere mundane", so there was no lost love there)

But this James Carstairs seemed impossible to insult. Will recalled the way he had stood up for himself the day before, even with Will being the nastiest he could be to someone who he instinctually wanted to take care of. So instead of insults, Will decided silence was the best way to ward off this boy.

However, Carstairs merely smiled again, and said, "not that this institute is worse than the one I'm from. My home tended to be filled with the smell of three day old fish from the pier, and I wasn't particularly fond of that."

Will, once again, said nothing.

"Charlotte said you're from Wales. Is it very pretty there?" the boy tried once more.

Ignoring the stabbing pains in his heart at the mention of his home, Will kept his silence.

He heard a soft sigh behind him, and watched out of the corner of his eye as Carstairs approached the wall a good eight feet away and inspected the weapons. He reached out to take one from the wall- a broadsword, Will noted- and in a flash that, had Will not been training for the past six months, he would have missed, threw the sword, hilt first, towards Will. Will gasped and grabbed the sharp weapon out of the air. He swore loudly in Welsh before turning and snarling at the other boy, "Watch what you're doing!"

Carstairs didn't seem shocked by this response. In fact, he just smiled.

"Ah," he said. "It speaks."

"Yes, and it also bleeds, when stabbed with flying sharpened bits of metal, in case you were wondering."

"I knew you would catch it." he replied as he took the sword from Will.

"Oh so you can see the future now, as well as play that instrument that kept me up half the night." Will said. The last part was true, but not because the music was awful. Just the opposite, it was the most beautiful thing he had heard since coming to London. He had actually paused slightly outside his door the night before. "Tell me, was your grandmother the great seer Cassandra?"

"No," Carstairs smiled again. "But I have an aunt who claims that she can tell the weather by the number Spiders in her closet."

Will couldn't help it, he snickered.

"And about my playing the violin, I could have sworn I heard someone lurking outside my door last night."

Perhaps it was less of a pause, and more likely he had sat outside the room for almost an hour before he had heard Carstairs walking towards the door. As soon as Will had heard the footsteps, he had bolted down the hall and up the stairs towards his room.

"So, if you want to keep trying to get me to hate you- and yes," Will stared slightly shocked at the boy, who raised his eyebrow. "I know that what you were trying to do. To go from the way you are now to how you were yesterday, you must think there is something terrible wrong with you. However, I personally like you, and you will have a hard time dissuading me. So," the boy looked at Will, who seemed stuck to the floor beneath him. "If you would like me to show you how to throw a knife without endangering your own eyes, I wouldn't mind helping."

At first, Will couldn't move, but slowly, he nodded his head. "Alright, James." He said. "If you think I'm that hazardous, maybe you could show me a thing or two."

The pale boy smiled, and Will realized that the small movement had made him seem less sick, but infinitely more fragile.

"Jem," the boy said. "Call me Jem."

And so Will did. And as the day went on, the boys activities became less training, and more the jubilant play of two young children: one happy to feel like a normal child, the other freed from six long, horrible months of pushing anyone away.

Will watched in amazement as Jem, who seemed hardly bigger that a bird, quickly scaled the ropes in one corner of the training room and began to almost trapeze through the rafters. Will tried to join him, but became frustrated when he found that the ropes were not quite as easy as Jem had made them appear. Will showed Jem the training course Will had set up for himself, and the boys race though the course, both eager to prove themselves to each other.

Finally, as the sun died outside the window, the boys sat against the wall, sagging with exhaustion. Jem laughed as Will told him of the duck in the park a few blocks away.

"Their savage creatures!" Will exclaimed to a giggling Jem. "I'm going to ask Agatha to make me a duck pie. I bet they would eat it."

"Surely not!" Jem said reasonably, coughing quietly.

"Yes, I'm sure of it! No sense of loyalty, the nasty beasts!" Jem was still laughing, but broke off in a cough again.

"Are you alright?" Will asked curiously.

"Oh yes," Jem hurried before coughing again. "Just some dus-" But he didn't have the chance to finish his statement as his body racked over in fit. Will watched, somewhat confused, waiting for his new friend to stop.

And then he saw the blood. He watched horror as droplets fell between Jem's fingertips and, behind the hands covering his mouth, he saw blood splatter out of his mouth.

"Jem!" he cried frantically, unknowing what to do. No. This wasn't how the curse was supposed to work. It only killed people who loved him! Not strange boys that barely knew him. It wasn't fair!

He put a hand on Jem's shoulder, hoping to steady the boy, and cried out "CHARLOTTE!" before returning to Jem, who was doubling over. "James." He whispered. His hushed call for the boy beside him was answered with another fit of coughs and more blood. He cried out for Charlotte again.

Charlotte heard shouting from the floor above her, and she groaned. Had Will picked a fight with Jem already? She thought back to almost saint-like patients and calm the small boy seemed to radiate. Well, if anyone could vex that poor boy. It was Will.

And then she heard it.

"CHARLOTTE!"

And she ran. Charlotte bolted up the stairs, cursing the dress she was wearing. It was so much easier to run in gear.

Hurrying down the hall way, she heard someone coughing, fighting for air, and her stomach dropped. Jem. She quickened her pace and threw open the doors to the training room.

In the corner of the room sat Will, eyes wide, face terrified, holding up Jem, who had blood splattered on his gear, his hand, and dripping from his mouth.

Straightening herself, and trying to calm the flurry of nerves rushing through her, she walked over to them and crouched down.

"James, where is your medicine?"

Coughing violently again, he breathed out, "In my room- box by the bed."

Charlotte nodded and turned to Will. "Will, could you please fetch the box? Don't open it, just bring it here as quickly as possible. His room is near the Music Room."

Will, looking terrified, stood, but instead of running off to fetch the box, let his eyes remain on Jem, who was still trying to breath.

"Will," she made her voice sharper, trying to cut through the fear she saw painted on his face. "Go now."

Will paled as another round of coughing brought more blood to Jem's mouth, but he nodded and hurried off. Charlotte watched as he left, then turned her attentions back to the sick boy.

"Jem, how much of you medicine have you taken?"

Jem's fit was slowly subsiding, and he offered Charlotte a weak smile that broke her heart.

"Just one dose. I didn't think I would be quiet this active today."

She smiled at the innocent tone in his voice. "Oh, Jem," she said softly. She produced a handkerchief, and used it to wipe the blood off his face.

Will ran as fast as could down the stairs, taking them two at a time. Once he made it to the music room, he started throwing open doors, unable to remember which room he had heard the music coming from the night before. Finally, though, he came across Jem's room.

Inside, on the bed, laid a case, which Will was sure contained the violin. And beside the bed, he found a box with a strange looking woman on it. it was a beautifully carved box, but when he lifted it, it felt light, empty.

He fought the temptation to open the box and be sure that the medicine was in there, and ran from the room, quickly, back to the training room. When he ran in, Charlotte was still on the floor, and Jem's face was mostly clear of blood. Other than the smears of blood at the corners of his mouth, he looked paler than ever

"Here," he said breathlessly, handing the box to Charlotte. She smiled kindly, then said, "Thank you, Will. If you would just wait outside while Jem-"

She paused when she heard Jem mumble something. "Jem?"

The boy took a deep breath, and spoke a little louder. "No, let him stay. I want him to see," he paused, breathing deep, trying not to cough again. Then he said something quieter, something he couldn't hear, but Charlotte nodded.

"Ok, Will. Do you want to stay?"

Will nodded without a second thought, and Charlotte pressed her lips tight, the she turned back to Jem. "Jem, do you need water, or-"

Jem shook his head. "It would be faster just to take it."

Will watched as Charlotte handed him the box. Jem took it and opened it, and Will saw a slivery powder that filled the box. He watched, horrified, as Jem inhaled the silvery substace. He shook his head, and for a moment, looked like he was going to sneeze. But it passed, and, taking a few deep breaths, Jem looked up at Will, and within moments, Will saw color slowly fade back into his face.

"What _is _that stuff?" Will asked.

Jem looked slightly abashed- no, Will noticed. Not abashed. Ashamed. He was ashamed, but of what? It was just medicine.

"It's a warlock powder, a drug, called _yin fen_."

The words took a moment to sink in, and when they did, it felt like a rushing wave crashed on him. A warlock powder, a drug. Jem was a drug addict.

Will was quiet for a moment then said, "Why do you take it?" he didn't take his eyes off Jem.

"My parents were killed by a demon, and the demon,Yanlu, tortured me with a drug similar to this," Jem gestured offhandedly towards the box now closed and lying beside him. "By the time the clave found me, my body was too addicted to the drug to stop. If I don't take it-"

"You'll die." Will paused, thinking quickly. "But yesterday, you said you were dying. Butif the drug keeps you alive, then-" he paused as the realization dawned, and Will was sure his face was twisted into something akin to horror, and loss. "The drug is keeping you alive, but it's killing you."

Jem smiled weakly, but kindly. "Yes. It's killing me."

"But," Will shook his head, trying to clear the thoughts spiraling around in his head. "There has to be a cure, a way to save you. You can't just-" he couldn't finish the sentece, and just stared horrified at Jem, who laughed softly.

"I won't die tomorrow, Will. Like I said, I have about two years. And even then, I'm going to fight for more." Will watched as the boy yawned, and he noticed how tired he looked.

"Jem, you need to rest." Charlotte said. "Let's get you to your room." She stood carefully and reached to help Jem to his feet, but he waved her hands away and attempted to stand on his own, but his legs were weak and he stumbled, almost falling on the floor, before Will rushed over held Jem up.

"Hold on James," Will said, and the three of them, Charlotte leading the way, and Jem leaning on Will as they made their way up to Jem's room.

Thirty minutes later, Jem was propped in his bed, and Will watched his eyes flutter as he slept. As he sat beside Jem, Will became aware of a warmth building in his chest. There was no question of abandoning this boy on his own. Charlotte would look out for him, but there was no one else for this boy, this strange James Carstairs. There was no one to bare his soul to, no one to help him bear the burden of his impeding death.

Will sat up and, hesitantly, took the sleeping boys hand. "James Carstairs, i barely know you, but already I feel you seared on my heart, just as firmly as my parents and sisters. I won't leave you, James. You won't be alone. And I refuse to let you die. It won't happen, not as long as I'm breathing."

Will leaned forward and laid his head on the bed, keeping his head near Jem's hand. "Do you hear me, James Carstairs?" he said, his voice getting foggy with sleep. "I will not leave you. Ever." He yawned, his eyelids falling shut.

"Never,"


End file.
